


Letter to the Editor

by 4n6ry64y57r1n6834n



Category: The Last of Us
Genre: Dirty Magazine, F/F, Masturbation, Sexual Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-29
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-11-01 08:04:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20811806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4n6ry64y57r1n6834n/pseuds/4n6ry64y57r1n6834n
Summary: Ellie is sick. Joel unintentionally brings her some interesting reading material.





	Letter to the Editor

Three months after all the… everything with the Fireflies, when Ellie and Joel are settled into Tommy's town, Ellie gets sick. 

It's an intense kind of sick, the kind of sick she's seen people die of, back in Boston. She coughs until lights swim in front of her eyes, and her chest feels like its caught in a vice. 

She's given medicine, soup, tea. She chokes down some truly godawful concoctions, and she sleeps more than she's ever slept in her life. There's a steady stream of people sitting up with her. At one point, Joel is sitting on the bed and reading to her, and at another point he's helping her sit up to drink a glass of water. 

She pulls through it - she pulls through it enough that she now has a chance to be _bored_. So bored. Bored enough she almost misses the delirium of the fever. 

Almost. 

"C'mon, Joel," she says when he comes in to check on her. She's well enough that nobody is hovering over her anymore, but she's been sleeping all day, and she's not tired. She's still coughing, but it doesn't seem _that_ bad. "I'm fuckin' dying here."

"You're not out of the woods yet," says Joel. "You need to rest."

"I'm bored," Ellie says, and she wishes her voice isn't coming out as such a whine. "So bored."

"So sleep." Joel is holding a mercury thermometer and frowning. "Open."

She makes a face, but opens her mouth. 

They're… okay. There's a thin, transparent wall between the two of them, something that she doesn't want to look at too closely. She can feel herself pulling away from him, and she can't bring herself to… stop. 

She isn't going to tell him to stop right now, though. She keeps her mouth closed on the thermometer and crosses her eyes, trying to read it. 

"You're still sick," says Joel. "But," he adds when he sees her face, "I'll see if I can get you anything to keep you from climbing the walls."

"Thanks," says Ellie, and she flops back onto the bed. She wants to get better already - she wants to be able to _do_ stuff again. 

"I can bring some cards 'round," Joel says, and he rubs the back of his neck. "We could play some go fish or poker, if you'd like.'

"No," Ellie says, because something about the idea of that makes her stomach twist up in uncomfortable ways. "I'll be okay." 

"Y'sure?" He's shooting her that hopeful doe eyed expression that always makes her stomach turn, just a bit. 

"I'll be fine," she repeats, then fakes a yawn. "I'm really tired all of a sudden," she says, and it's a blatant lie. She's pretty sure that he can tell it's a lie - he almost always catches her in her lies. But he doesn't say anything, just ruffles her hair, then stands up and leaves, closing the door carefully behind him. 

Ellie rolls onto her stomach when she hears the door click shut, and she presses her face into the pillow. The fact that she has a room to herself at all is a hedonistic luxury that she's been too sick to revel in, until now. She can, in theory, dance naked around the place and not have to worry about anyone seeing. 

Maybe when she isn't sick - at present, people will occasionally come in to take her temperature and make sure she isn't dying or whatever. 

She's never had privacy like this before, not really. It's _her_ room; Tommy has said as much. Since the expansion, there's more room in general, and... well. 

She rolls onto her back again, then sits up as her chest seizes up again, coughing and coughing until she's seeing more lights behind her eyes, and she's half worried she'll end up rupturing something. She ends up standing up and staggering to the window to spit out something, then tripping back into bed. She pulls the blanket over herself again, and starts to let her mind wander. 

* * *

Ellie is woken up by something landing on her bed. She jolts awake, her fists up, and then she starts coughing again. Strong, familiar hands are helping her sit up and thumping her on the back - she coughs up more of something gross, and a handkerchief wipes her mouth. 

When she can breathe again, she opens her eyes and looks up at Joel, who is looking at her, concerned. 

"You okay?"

"I'm fine," Ellie croaks, and she accepts the mug of water, wincing as it passes over her raw throat. "I'm fine," she says again, and she sounds a little better this time. 

"I raided Tommy's study for some reading material for you," Joel says, and he indicates the pile of magazines that he's left by her feet on the skinny little bed. "Should keep you occupied for a little bit."

"Thanks, Joel," she says, and she smiles at him, touched. 

He smiles back, and it's almost like things are alright again. 

"I've gotta go for now," he says, and he pats her on the leg. "I'll be back in a few hours to check up on you."

"Right," says Ellie. She yawns, for real this time, and sinks down into the bed again. 

"Sleep well," he says, and he pats her on the leg. 

"Thanks," she mumbles, letting her eyes drift shut. She's distantly aware of the sound of the door closing, and then she's asleep. 

* * *

The magazines Joel brought are an eclectic bunch. There's something called _Teen Vogue_, with lots of articles on how to do things like eyeliner, or exercises for the perfect bubble butt. She discards that one pretty fast. There's another one with a picture of a tiny, skinny dog on the cover - _Whippet Snippet_. There is a magazine full of knitting patterns and reviews of various kinds of yarn, and a few other ones that she just glances at. 

She's read the expression "kid in a candy shop" and while she isn't a kid at nearly fifteen (regardless of what everyone says), she thinks this may be what it feels like. All this reading, just for her. 

Ellie is bored enough that she reads them all. She starts from the top of the pile and she makes her way down. She finds the unexpected one third from the bottom, under _Philatelist Monthly_ (she'll have to ask Joel about that at some point - weren't stamps just used to send letters?), and she almost discards it. 

_Pussy Prowl_, proclaims the title in lurid yellow letters. She's reminded of the caution tape she sees scattered around abandoned buildings, although maybe the fever is messing with her. There's a picture of a naked woman on the cover, her hair dyed bright red, her lips painted a similar shade. She's leaning over a table, pushing her breasts together, and her mouth is open in an 'o'. Ellie's eyes keep tracking from the dark red of her lips to the acres of pale white skin to the dark pink of her nipples, then back up again. Joel must not have realized this was there, and just grabbed the whole pile.

Ellie sits there staring for who knows how long. Her mouth is dry, and her heart is beating desperately in her ears. She's looks around wildly, even though she's the only one in the tiny bedroom, and she listens just as hard. 

She can hear people singing as they work on the garden, and kids laughing. There's the rhythmic _ting-ting-ting_ of someone working at the forge, and the sound of the horse's shifting in their stalls. 

She would hear if someone came up the stairs. She's okay. It'll be fine. Nobody will catch her. 

It's not as if it's the first time she's seen naked women - it's not as if it's the first time she's seen a dirty magazine, even! She remembers the one she filched from Bill, thrown out the car window. That had been… weird, in an academic sort of way. 

This is different. 

She licks her lips, and her hands are shaking as she opens the magazine. She stares down at the spread in front of her; _Drivethru Girlz_ proclaimed the brightly colored letters. There are women, all naked, draped across booths and tables, looking at the viewer. The woman on the counter has her legs wide open, her knees bent, her feet planted on the stools. Ellie bites her lip, staring at the juncture of her thighs. 

She knows a lot of different words for that particular body part. Some of them are obscene. Some of them are clinical. She hasn't given it much thought, apart from the times when she's yelled variations on that theme at people. It’s become incredibly important now, and Ellie licks her lips. 

She’s seen people naked. She grew up in a dormitory, and it’s hard not to see other people naked. Never like this, though. Never so… purposefully. She realizes, somewhat belatedly, in that she has her knuckle shoved into her mouth, and her teeth are digging into it. She's sitting up, and she's suddenly aware she's tensing her thighs up, and her face is reddening. 

The women are all wearing makeup - Ellie has never worn makeup, has never seen someone wearing it in real life. The women all have bright colors on their eyelids, bright red lips. Their nipples are also bright - did people wear makeup there too, and just don't talk about it now? Their nails are long and brightly colored, and look just as shiny. Ellie is struck by the intense urge to feel that same smoothness across her tongue, to suck on their fingers like… well, not like anything she's ever heard of or seen. 

They all have flat, toned stomachs and unscarred skin. They look soft, but faintly shiny - Ellie wonders what it would feel like under her hands - she's never wanted to just touch someone else like this, not really. She's had idle thoughts of someone being attractive, but she's never thought of them like… this. Kissing Riley had been… _right_, exciting and perfect and wonderful… and she doesn't have it in her to think about that right now. She pushes it out of her mind, and she traces her fingers over the slightly glossy page of the magazine. It's smooth. 

She realizes with a jolt that she's been staring for a while - long enough that the light has changed in the room. She shifts, and she's sticky between her thighs, a deep, dull throb filling her, almost an emptiness. She's felt bits of this before, the restless energy that leaves her wanting to do… something. She's not sure what. 

The door opens, and Ellie nearly has a heart attack. She shoves _Pussy Prowl_ under her pillow, grabs a magazine at random, and takes a deep breath in an attempt to look as normal as possible. 

And then she starts coughing, because she's still sick. When Joel whacks her on the back, she nearly knocks the blanket off and revealing what she’s looking at to Joel, which… no. She keeps the blanket over her legs, and she wheezes some more. At least she has an excuse to have such a red face, right? 

Joel fusses over her, and she… endures it, although it feels wrong to put it that way. She eats the soup he gives her, and then she lies back in bed, claiming tiredness. She _tired_, and still pulsing between the legs, and all she wants to do is… what?

When Joel leaves, she pulls the magazine back out. 

Ellie sits there, hunched forward, her index finger tracing over the glossy paper. Her heart is still beating so hard, and she's trembling. She squirms, and she's acutely aware of how _wet_ she is.

Ellie knows about getting wet, knows about... all of that. She's been wet before - leaning forward in just the right way while riding a horse makes her stomach light up and her legs shake, but she's made a point not to concentrate on that too much, because usually when she's riding a horse she's got other people around her, and she doesn't want to look too weird. She's read enough books to pick up on certain things. She's even read dirty books, although most of them have left a lot to be desired. Seeing those magazines of Bill's cemented her feelings in regards to men: not anything she's interested in. 

She's never read anything between two women, beyond something vaguely suggested. She's never seen women kiss each other before, like they are in the picture. There are _tongues_, and one of them is pinching the other one's nipple. The one whose nipple is being pinched - she's got dark hair, and she's arching her back. They've all got big breasts, bigger than Ellie has ever seen, and she wants to hold them in her hands. She shivers, and she presses down on the magazine, covering the bit of the picture where the woman is pinching the other woman's nipple. 

What would that feel like? To have someone else touch her breast, to pinch or squeeze or twist her nipples? She's never done that - she's mostly approached her boobs with resignation as they fail to get any bigger. She glances at the door again, then pauses. She doesn't want to get caught - she might just _die_ if anyone catches her like this, let alone if she gets in trouble. Although she's nearly fifteen, so what would they tell her, that she's too young for this?

She pulls her blanket up and over her head, bringing the magazine under the covers with her. The old mattress creaks under her, and it's stiflingly hot under the blanket. Her flashlight is crammed under the pillow, and she fumbles it out, turning it on with shaking hands. The light is very bright, and it reflects awkwardly off of the glossy magazine pictures. She probably shouldn't be wasting a battery like this, but... _fuck_. Her knuckle is in her mouth again, and her teeth are digging into her finger, hard enough to leave dents in the skin. 

Ellie turns a page, and finds a picture of a woman's head between another woman's thighs. There are fingers threaded through the one woman's dark red hair, and Ellie can see between the red haired woman's legs. She's slick and red, and Ellie wonders faintly if that's what she'd look like right now if she bends forward and someone saw her from behind.

She slides a hand under her tank top, and she pauses, hovering right over her breast. The woman in the pic seems to like it. She wouldn't do it if she didn't like it, right? Ellie's never had someone else touch her breasts, and when she squeezes her breast, it feels... fine. Not good, not bad. Just fine. She pinches her nipple, and _oh_, that's interesting. That's definitely interesting. 

She tries again, and she twists it this time, just a little bit. A shot of... something hits her in the gut, and she gasps. The little puff of air pushes her hair out of her face, and she's just... aware of it. Aware of her whole body. Aware that everything is happening at once, and she's feeling every inch of her skin, and she can't breathe. It's stifling under the blanket, and she can't imagine anyone _catching_ her like this. She's sweating, and her fingers slip in it when she twists her nipple again. 

"Fuck," she mumbles, and her voice is rough. "Oh _fuck_." Another twist, and she shudders as goosebumps wash over her back in waves. She pinches again, and pulls this time. 

She pulses between the legs, actually _pulses_, and there's some kind of intense... aching. She's full of some kind of restless energy, and she needs... she doesn't even know what it is that she needs. Maybe she just needs to turn the page.

There aren't any pictures on the next page, and she wrinkles her nose. "Boo," she mumbles, but she isn't thinking as she does it. She squints down at the page - it looks like a bunch of... what, letters to the editor? She snorts. 

Ellie has seen this kind of thing in magazines before - the philately magazine contains a whole bunch of letters about the kinds of minutiae that is almost another language (what the hell is a "stamp hinge" or "watermark fluid"?), but... what the fuck does anyone write to a magazine like _this_? She squints down at it, and she begins to read. 

_Dear Pussy Prowl_, reads the first one, _I could never believe it would happen to me_. 

Ellie’s eyes skim over the magazine, and she runs her tongue along her lips as she skims over the text. She stops when she sees the phrase _perfect little tits_, and she goes back to the beginning of the paragraph. She curls her toes, and they press against her thigh. 

_I normally go for girls with bigger tits,_ Ellie read, _but this chick was just so cute. She had long brown hair and the most perfect little tits. Her ass was flat and her hips weren’t that big, but seeing her eating that peach made me so horny that I left a wet spot on my seat._

Fuck, that’s a thing that can happen, isn’t it? She’s going to have to worry about cleaning up her sheets. Maybe they’ll think she’s sweated through them? She goes back to reading. 

_Her cute little tits fit perfectly in my mouth, and she almost creamed when I sucked her whole tit into my mouth._

Sucked on them. Oh. Fuck. Ellie pinches her other nipple, and her hips twitch forward again. She wants to… move. She wants pressure, right _there_. She shoves her hand between her legs, and she presses into it. It relieves some of the pressure, and a shock of… something slides down her back. “Fuck,” she mumbles, and goes back to reading. 

There is more set up, but she keeps skimming, until she sees _I rubbed her clit and she squirted down my arm_ and she shudders. She knows what a clit is, and that it’s supposed to feel good when you touch it. Judging by that criteria, she has a feeling she knows where hers is. She can, in theory, rub her own clit. That is definitely a thing that she can do. She isn’t sure why she’s so nervous about this, when it comes down to it. 

She’s touched herself there before - she’s wiped after pissing, she’s washed, and it’s her own body. Like fuck if she’s going to be afraid of it. She slides her hand down into the waistband of her underwear, and her pubes are sticky against her fingers. She’s never been wet like this before, and she feels gently along her pussy. She’s never done much… feeling around; she’s never had the time, or the inclination to do so, but… well, why not. 

She finds a spot - a little bump under her finger, and when she presses down… oh. 

_Oh_. 

“Fuck,” Ellie mumbles, and she presses down again. She reads back, and certain phrases catch her eye. _Perfect little tits_ echoes through her head like she’s shouted in a cave, and she rubs herself harder. She’s aching inside, and she keeps rubbing, her mouth falling open, and she shudders. There’s something building at the base of her gut, her heels digging into her thighs. She rocks, and she keeps rubbing. _Perfect little tits, she had perfect little tits_. 

She pinches her nipple, and she keeps rubbing herself. The pressure inside of her is beginning to get stronger, and she’s flips the page back, to look at the pictures again. She kept rubbing herself, and she tried to imagine the sensation of someone’s tongue against her. She rubs little circles, increasing the pressure, and oh _fuck_.

“Oh,” Ellie said. “Oh, fuck, fuck…” Her eyes go unfocused, and she keeps staring at the pictures, not really seeing them. She imagines what it looks like when they’re moving, the way her head would bob. She’s seen people lick things, and that would be similar, right? Lick and suck. She slides her fingers into her mouth, and she licks them, her eyes sliding shut. She sucks on them, and she presses down on her tongue with the pad of her finger. She pinches her nipple harder, rubs with more purpose, as something… crests. 

The pressure in her gut snaps like a bone, and then heat and tingling spreads through her body. Her pussy is spasming around… nothing, and she flops back on the bed, panting. She’s trembling, and she’s still so wet that her underwear is stuck to her thigh. 

“Fuck,” Ellie pants up to the ceiling. “I am _so_ going to do that again.” if the first few pages of the magazine are this intense, who even knows what’s going to be on the later pages? She really can’t wait to find out.

**Author's Note:**

> Replaying _Left Behind_ and I realize Ellie had a room to herself. Oops. Ignore the continuity snarl.


End file.
